Multichannel and Omnichannel Retailing

Multichannel and Omnichannel Retailing

• Retail channels define how retailers sell and deliver merchandise/services.
• Single-channel retailing involves selling through one channel.
• Multichannel retailing uses multiple channels to sell and deliver.
• Cross-channel retailing involves customers using multiple channels to make purchases, like downloading a coupon on a smartphone and redeeming it in-store.
• Omnichannel retailing is a coordinated multichannel approach providing a seamless and synchronized customer experience through all of the retailer's channels.
• Browsing shoppers in stores often have a general sense of what they want.
• Touching and feeling products gives customers the opportunity to use all five senses.
• Personal service in physical stores provides meaningful personalized information.
• Risk reduction is achieved through the physical presence of stores.
• Immediate gratification occurs when customers obtain merchandise instantly.
• Entertainment and social experience in-store can provide a break in routine and opportunities for interaction.
• Cash payments are accepted only at physical stores.
• Internet retailing involves retailers interacting with consumers via the Internet through computers, laptops, tablets, or smartphones.
• Mobile retailing/commerce involves accessing the Internet through tablets or smartphones.
• Digital Marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the Internet.
• Internet channels enable retailers to offer a greater selection of products.
• Retailers can provide more information through Internet channels.
• Retailers can give customers more personalized product/service information using the Internet.
• Sellers have the opportunity to collect information about consumer shopping online.
• Entry into new markets is made easier for retailers using Internet channels.
• Information provided improves the shopping experience.
• Consumer risk is potentially increased by gathering Internet channel information.
• Benefits of internet channels are a deeper/broader selection, more information, personalization, expanded market presence, improved shopping experiences, and perceived risks in shopping.
• Live chats offer customers email or voice conversation with a customer service rep.
• Mobile channels involve customer-retailer interactions that can be location-sensitive.
• Social retailing involves conducting purchase transactions on social media sites.
• Social Media Marketing (SMM) uses social media sites/networks to market a company's products/services and allows companies to reach new customers and promote their desired culture.
• Catalog channels communicate retail offerings via mailed catalogs.
• Direct selling is when salespeople interact face-to-face with customers in a convenient location like home or work.
• Automated retailing uses machines to store and dispense merchandise or services when payments are made with cash or card.
• Vending machines are typically placed at convenient and high-traffic locations.
• Retailers need to offer features that enhance the customer's experience across channels.
• Multichannel retailers project the same image across all channels to maintain a consistent brand image.
• Customers expect everything they see in a retailer's store is available on its website as well.
• Customers expect pricing consistency across all channels for multichannel retailers.

Customer Buying Behavior

• An effective retail strategy satisfies customer needs better.
• Understanding customer stages when purchasing helps build strategy.
• The social/personal factors influencing decisions are important.
• Examining how retailers can increase customer visits/purchases leads to better planning.
• Retailers may group customers into segments, which determines how they market.
• Extended Problem Solving involves customers devoting time/effort to analyzing options; this is used when financial risk is high
• Limited Problem Solving involves some time/effort; Impulse buying is a type of this
• Habitual Decision Making is buying decisions with little or no effort; this is often brand/store loyalty.
• Buying process stages are need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and post-purchase evaluation.
• Functional needs relate directly to product performance.
• Psychological needs are associated with personal satisfaction like buying a specific brand.
• Stimulation, Social Experience, Trends, Status & Power, and Self Reward influence psychological purchases.
• Utilitarian needs are satisfied when getting a suit for job interviews.
• Hedonic needs are for entertaining, emotional, and recreational experiences.
• Cross-shopping is when a customer buys an inexpensive store brand of paper towels and a premium national brand of orange juice
• Advertising, emails, direct mail, publicity, and special events stimulate unmet needs and communicate availability of new items/prices.
• The SPIN method stands for Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need Payoff.

Information & Decision Making

• Information search depends on customer evaluation of the product's value
• Information sources: internal and external
• Everyday low pricing and exchange offers can reduce information search
• Showrooming involves consumers gathering information in stores and then buying online
• The multiattribute attitude model predicts customer evaluation based on attribute performance and importance.
• Retailers are influenced to make choices with; alternative retailers customers consider, characteristics/benefits customers value when evaluating, customer ratings of each retailer's performance, and customer attachment to characteristics.
• Improving beliefs about performance, changing importance weights, and adding new benefits helps get into the consideration set
• Purchasing is made easy for customers when goods are readily available on mobile devices.
• Retailers increase the ability to turn positive purchase intention into a sale which is done by sufficient information, reducing purchase risk, and creating urgency/scarcity
• Satisfaction is achieved when store/product meets/exceeds customer expectations.
• Extended problem solving is when decisions involve risk and uncertainty.
• Financial risks arise with expensive purchases.
• Physical risks are important to customers when a service or product affects safety/health.
• Social risks concern how customers believe a product will affect others' views of them.
• Limited problem solving involves a moderate amount of time and effort and results in impulse buys and unplanned purchases.
• Social factors influencing buying are the economy, family, reference groups, and culture.
• Other factors are occupation/income and age/gender.
• A retail market segment is a customer group that shares the same retail mix due to similar needs.
• Market segments have to be actionable, identifiable, substantial, and reachable
• Approaches for segmenting markets include geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral segmentation.